Whether it was driving a doubledecker bus with a hole cut in the top to let climbers scale Big Ben unobserved by a passing police patrol car, or dodging barrels of nuclear waste being hurled at him in the middle of the Atlantic, Pete Wilkinson, who has died suddenly aged 78, apparently of a heart attack, showed no fear. Through nonviolent direct action or in the debating chamber, Pete, the co-founder and first director of Greenpeace UK, never lost an opportunity to point out uncomfortable truths to the powerful.
Although he had many campaigning successes, two achievements stand out – stopping the British government’s annual dumping of hundreds of tons of nuclear waste in the Atlantic, and persuading the leaders of the Antarctic treaty nations, including Margaret Thatcher, to declare Antarctica a “world park”. The 50-year moratorium on mining for oil, gold and other minerals agreed in the 1990s still stands.
